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Balder
Balder is the name beauty, joy, purity, and peace, and is Odin's second son. His wife is called Nanna and his son is called Forseti. Balder has a ship, the largest ever built, named Hringhorni, and a hall, called Breidablik. The Prose Edda In the Gylfaginning section of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda Balder is described as follows. :The second son of Odin is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in the place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be. - Balder is known primarily for the myth surrounding his death. His death is seen as the first in the chain of events which will ultimately lead to the destruction of the gods at Ragnarok. Balder will be reborn in the new world, however, as foretold in the Völuspá. With this resurrection in mind, he is classified as a life-death-rebirth deity. In the myth, Balder had a dream of his own death (or his mother had the same dreams). Since dreams were usually prophetic, this depressed him, and his mother Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt Balder. All but one, an insignificant weed called the mistletoe, made this vow. Frigg had thought it too unimportant and nonthreatening to bother asking it to make the vow (alternatively, it seemed too young to swear). When Loki, the mischief-maker, heard of this, he made a magical spear from this plant (in some later versions, an arrow). He hurried to the place where the gods were indulging in their new pastime of hurling objects at Balder, which would bounce off without harming him. Loki gave the spear to Balder's brother, the blind god Höðr, who then inadvertently killed his brother with it. For this act, Odin and the giantess Rindr gave birth to Váli who grew to adulthood within a day and slew Höðr. Balder was ceremonially burnt upon his ship, Hringhorni, the largest of all ships. As he was carried to the ship, Odin whispered in his ear. This was to be a key riddle asked by Odin (in disguise) of the giant Vafthruthnir (and which was, of course, unanswerable) in the Vafthruthnismal (the riddle also appears in the riddles of Gestumblindi in Hervarar saga). The dwarf Litr was kicked by Thor into the funeral fire and burnt alive. Nanna, Balder's wife, also threw herself on the funeral fire to await the end of Ragnarok when she would be reunited with her husband (alternatively, she died of grief). Balder's horse with all its trappings was also burned on the pyre. The ship was set to sea by Hyrrokin, a giantess, who came riding on a wolf and gave the ship such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook. Upon Frigg's entreaties, delivered through the messenger Hermod, Hel promised to release Balder from the underworld if all objects alive and dead would weep for him. And all did, except a giantess, Thokk, who refused to mourn the slain god. And thus Balder had to remain in the underworld, not to emerge until after Ragnarok, when he and his brother Höðr would be reconciled and rule the new earth together with Thor's sons. When the gods discovered that the giantess had been Loki in disguise, they hunted him down and bound him to three rocks. Then they tied a serpent above him, the venom of which dripped onto his face. His wife Sigyn gathered the venom in a bowl, but from time to time she had to turn away to empty it, at which point the poison would drip onto Loki, who writhed in pain, thus causing earthquakes. He would free himself, however, in time to attack the gods at Ragnarok. The Poetic Edda In the Elder Edda the tragic tale of Balder is hinted at rather than told at length. Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees and describes in the weird prophecy known as the Völuspá is one of the fatal mistletoe. "I behold," says she, "Fate looming for Balder, Woden's son, the bloody victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate, blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on, there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but Frigga in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall." Yet looking far into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new heaven and a new earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their increase and all sorrows shall be healed; then Balder will come back to dwell in Odin's mansions of bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun, shingled with gold, where the righteous shall live in joy for ever more. References *[http://www.northvegr.org/lore/prose/index.php'' Snorri Sturluson.The Prose Edda] External Links * Viktor Rydberg's "Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland" e-book * W. Wagner's "Asgard and the Home of the Gods" e-book * "Myths of Northern Lands" e-book by H.A. Guerber * Peter Andreas Munch's "Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes" e-book Category:Norse gods Category:Asatru/Odinism Category:Norse gods Category:Beauty deities Category:Joy deities Category:Peace deities